


What If This Storm Ends

by Archangel_Blood



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Barebacking, Emotional Baggage, Greece, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Service Kink, Summer Love, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 02:46:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3512300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel_Blood/pseuds/Archangel_Blood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite all evidence to the contrary, Harry does actually know how to take a hint; sometimes he just chooses not to. It’s not that he particularly enjoys disappointment, but he can deal with it. What ifs, on the other hand, those are the paper cuts and grazed knees that seem like nothing much, yet they take forever to heal, itching and stinging and driving you mad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What If This Storm Ends

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a quick drabble, but I have a lot of feelings, apparently. So, enjoy? (Or I’m sorry, whichever fits.)  
> Title from "What If This Storm Ends?" by Snow Patrol.  
> I own nothing, and I have no idea what I’m talking about.

_What if this storm ends?_   
_And I don't see you_   
_As you are now_   
_Ever again_

_Snow Patrol, "What If This Storm Ends?"_

 

 

No matter how many times he tries to pronounce the island’s name that first day, the locals laugh. It’s not unkind; they laugh like it’s a joke they want to share with Harry, their tanned, weather-beaten faces crinkling with mirth, so he laughs with them. They correct him, and Harry tries again. Greek feels sweet and rich on his tongue, a flurry of unfamiliar flavours and sensations, like those syrupy semolina cakes he had in Athens.

He’s been backpacking through Europe for about three months now, his old school bag hanging off his shoulder and a ratty _Moleskine_ in hand. He will write a travel journal one day, he thinks. His scattered notes, covered with coffee stains and greasy fingerprints, will come to life to tell stories of gray Parisian mornings, paper bags full of yesterday’s croissants and hostel owners with gentle eyes, of the quaint art galleries and secret gardens of Milan, of a deserted train station in Budapest at night, its lonely echo drowned out by the night club down the street, with its dizzying kaleidoscope of colours, sounds and bursts of discordant energy.

There’s something about this island that feels different, though. Harry’s not sure what it is yet, but he felt it the moment he stepped off the ferry this morning and filled his lungs with salt-soaked air. A sense of—not belonging, exactly, rather some weird, bone-deep certainty that for the first time in his life, he is precisely where he’s supposed to be.

The sun is blinding, scorching even in early September; it gilds the hilltops overlooking the port and bounces off flat roofs and whitewashed façades, so unlike the feeble spark of mustard yellow he grew up longing for back in England, rain-drenched and suffocated by fog.

After buying a pair of hot pink flip-flops to change into, Harry spends the day wandering the narrow streets of the small capital town. He eats fried _calamari_ at a taverna by the sea, sipping beer and tracing patterns on the blue-and-white checked tablecloth. A family of cats is making the rounds between the tables, generously accepting the food people offer them, so Harry keeps sneaking them pieces of _calamari_ under his chair.

He picks up a travel guide from a street stand afterwards, sitting down on the pavement to flip through it. It would earn him odd, wary stares elsewhere—a dishevelled guy in dire need of a shower, sitting cross-legged on the pavement, but no one pays him any mind here. The noisy sunburnt tourists pass him by without a second glance, and shop owners only bug him until they realise he has no money to squander. He’d sold his car, a prehistoric Mini that mostly just coughed and groaned a lot, and his laptop, along with everything else he owned worth more than a few quid, but it was not much, and he’s already burned through most of it.

Frugality doesn’t come naturally to Harry, so he has to remind himself that he doesn’t actually _need_ the headband with blinking antennae, however attractive the idea of looking like a crazy disco ladybird may be, or the huge fruit bowl with mythological scenes, which his mum would love. Briefly, he thinks of the sad, disillusioned look in her eyes when Harry told her and her husband that he was dropping out of uni, then places the bowl back on the shelf. It’s not something souvenirs can fix, he reckons.

When the sun starts to sink into the Ionian sea, pools of scarlet and fiery orange blooming across its smooth surface, Harry rents a shabby-looking scooter, sends a quick prayer to whom it may concern and straddles it, leaving the capital town behind him.

Choosing to brave the narrow serpentine roads, winding along the edges of the cliffs, at night may not have been his finest idea. Harry does his best to ignore the precipice mere inches away from the asphalt and the rumbling sea below, awaiting careless drivers and lost travelers, but by the time he reaches a tiny village near the northern tip of the island, he is sufficiently freaked out.

He doesn’t know what makes him pull over—the pair of flower-bedecked street lamps with flickering yellow lights, the song of crickets, or the smell of home-cooked dinner mixing with the fragrant night air.

The cottage has stone walls and wrought iron railings, almost hidden behind a tangle of wildly blooming bushes. Harry peeks through the branches, trying for a better look, nearly shitting a brick when a grinning face pops up right in front of him. Its owner is an old lady, approximately the height of a garden gnome; she has a rose-printed kerchief tied around her fluffy white hair and a smile that makes Harry think of Pippi Longstocking.

Her name is Euphrosyne. She doesn’t speak a word of English, but that doesn’t seem to faze her at all as she ushers Harry inside and makes him eat three helpings of _moussaka_. Harry asks her to repeat the name so he can write it down in his journal, and she laughs, a pretty tinkling sound.

After dinner, she shows him into a small room on the second floor, with a narrow single bed and embroidered tapestries lining the walls.

“How much is the room?” Harry asks, a bit dazed.

Euphrosyne takes his backpack from him and pointedly places it at the foot of the bed.

“Sorry, I don’t have much money. Euro?” Harry tries again, taking his wallet out of his back pocket.

She just glares at him; Harry shrugs helplessly.

“Sorry,” he says again, not entirely sure what he’s apologising for, but it seems appropriate.

Euphrosyne crosses her twiggy arms over her chest and stares at him, unrelenting. Harry sits on the edge of the bed, suddenly too overwhelmed and exhausted to keep standing.

Beaming at him, Euphrosyne practically skips out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Harry scrubs a hand over his face, his eyelids drooping with weariness. He peels off his dirty clothes, dropping them on the floor, then sprawls out on the bed. It’s hard and lumpy, but the sheets are clean and smell like sunshine and soap. He can mow the lawn or do the dishes or something, if it turns out he can’t afford to pay for the room.

It’s his last thought before he drifts off to sleep, the distant whisper of waves crashing against the shore soothing him like a lullaby.

 

 

 

Harry pulls the curtain aside, slides the balcony door open and gasps.

Blue, blue everywhere—the sky, the sea, even the yacht on the horizon looks blue from here. It’s not the dull, somber shades of summer in the North, but brilliant and bright and lucent, cerulean and turquoise and cyan, and probably a dozen more colours that Harry doesn’t have a name for. He hopes someone else does, because they deserve to have one.

There’s a strip of blindingly white beach visible below, at the foot of the hill.

Leaning on the iron railing, he just breathes, letting the onslaught of colour kick-start all his senses.

He can smell freshly brewed coffee; nearby, someone is chattering happily in Greek; a cock crows. It seems ages since he’d last heard one, not since he was a kid, back before his mum and her then-husband moved to London.

Amidst the sounds of the village waking up, he can still hear the waves, their soft splashing woven into the very texture of the island like a subtle leitmotif.

Harry smiles.

Euphrosyne is nowhere to be seen when he goes downstairs, after a quick shower. He pads barefoot through the small sunlit kitchen, dressed in swim shorts and an old T-shirt. The floor tiles have flowers painted on them, and a set of copper pots and pans hangs over the stove.

He finds a full coffee pot on the kitchen table, along with a plate of fried bread and a jar of fig jam.

Harry gingerly lowers himself into one of the rickety wicker chairs, not taking his eyes off the food.

Maybe it’s not for him.

Maybe Euphrosyne is expecting someone.

His stomach growls loudly, and that’s that—Harry will be the first to admit that he’s never been good at resisting temptation.

Three pieces of fried bread in, he’s less concerned about dropping a clanger, too busy licking jam off his fingers and moaning obscenely.

The coffee is something else; it’s thick, black and bloody strong. His eyes almost fall out of their sockets after the first sip. Harry downs it in three long gulps and studies the grounds at the bottom of the cup dubiously, before shrugging and refilling it.

It was a mistake, he concedes ten minutes later as he rushes down to the beach, flip-flops smacking loudly against his heels. There’s no particular need to hurry, admittedly, but he can’t seem to help it, dashing down the narrow trail and humming some pop tune at twice the normal speed.

Instead of sand, the beach is lined with smooth white pebbles—

“Bloody hell.”

Slippery white pebbles, Harry is displeased to discover as he faceplants into them.

He hears a quiet snort behind him and nearly somersaults, scrambling to his feet to check where the sound had come from.

_Oh._

Right—he’s hallucinating, Harry decides. Fucking Greek coffee. There’s no way this guy could be real.

“You alright, mate?” the stranger asks in a voice made for filthy whispers in dimly lit bedrooms. His accent is thick and decidedly English.

“No way,” Harry affirms.

The guy lifts an eyebrow; it’s a very handsome eyebrow, just like the rest of him, but then again, that’s only to be expected. Harry’s always liked pretty things.

He’s staring, he knows he’s staring, but it’s his hallucination, so.

The guy stares right back. He’s sitting on the ground, shirtless and fucking glorious. His blue jeans are faded and ripped at the knees, dark hair tousled by the wind, and he’s holding a camera.

He shouldn’t make sense, is the thing, all sharp angles and delicate lines, soft sun-kissed hues set off by dramatic black ink, a wry smile and cautious eyes the colour of old copper coins.

He shouldn’t make sense, and he doesn’t; Harry’s fairly sure that it’s not actually possible for anyone to look like that.

Heaving a bewildered sigh, he walks up to him and sits down.

A muscle twitches in the guy’s jaw, a little like he doesn’t like people sitting so close to him and a lot like he’d much prefer to be left alone. Harry supposes that the urge to reach out and touch his face, while certainly intriguing, may not be the best course of action right now, so he grabs a fistful of pebbles just to keep his hands occupied.

It gets him a bizarre look. “You tripping or something?”

“Possibly,” Harry admits ruefully. “I just had two cups of Greek coffee.”

The guy chuckles, almost reluctantly. _Yes, let me entertain you_ , Harry thinks, not nearly as sarcastically as he may have liked.

“You must be new. Here,” he says, handing Harry back one of his flip-flops. He must have lost it when he fell.

“Thank you.”

Harry had estimated once that with his lack of balance and proneness to accidents, he’d be bound to spend approximately 78 percent of his life feeling mortified, so he’d just decided against it. Some days it works better than others.

The guy eyes the flip-flop as Harry puts it back on. “Is that glitter?”

Harry bends his head to examine it, and their foreheads almost touch.

“Yeah.” It comes out somewhat defiant, and the guy seems to pick up on it, because he gives a lazy roll of his shoulder. There’s really no reason for it to look as attractive as it does.

“Nah, it’s cool. I think my baby sister has the same ones, actually,” he says, straight-faced.

Harry huffs; what kind of prick descends from Mount Olympus just to take the piss out of mortals’ taste in footwear?

“You know, not to be rude, but I did have a similar dream about Merlin once,” Harry says indignantly, “and he was friendlier than you. Like, _much_ friendlier.”

The guy purses his lips, either fighting a smile or, probably more likely, judging whoever let Harry walk around without supervision, then he turns his back to him and lifts the camera again.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Harry does actually know how to take a hint; sometimes he just chooses not to. It’s not that he particularly enjoys disappointment, but he can deal with it. _What ifs_ , on the other hand, those are the paper cuts and grazed knees that seem like nothing much, yet they take forever to heal, itching and stinging and driving you mad.

“Harry,” he declares, more vehemently than strictly necessary. The guy draws back, startled. “I mean, I’m Harry. Styles. It’s my name,” he clarifies hurriedly, then shifts gears, “Mind if I hang around for a bit? I can be really quiet. Won’t make a sound, promise.”

“Wanna bet?” the guy asks, flashing him an outrageous grin over his shoulder. Harry’s jaw goes slack, which earns him an expressive eye roll, then, “Zayn,” he says. “I’m Zayn.”

Harry makes good on his promise, content to observe silently, and other than the occasional sidelong glance, Zayn doesn’t really pay him any attention. It’s rewarding, somehow—like gaining the trust of a wild animal, until it grows comfortable enough with your presence to forget you’re there.

Knees drawn up against his chest, Harry lets himself enjoy the tranquility of the moment: the sea lapping at the rocky shore, the wind sneaking playfully under the hem of his T-shirt, the small stones crunching under Zayn’s bare feet as he wanders about the deserted beach with his camera. In the late morning sun, the pebbles shimmer like quartz, a shower of bright sparks dancing around Zayn’s ankles.

“Bored yet?” Zayn turns to look at him, wrinkling his nose when his hair blows about wildly. It’s a little adorable.

“No,” Harry says, hiding a smile in the crook of his arm, “no, I’m good.”

 

 

 

 

Harry awakes to a camera going off in his face. He mumbles a confused ‘wha?’ and rubs his eyes with the back of his hands.

“You dozed off—on top of me,” Zayn says. “Fuck if I know how, after all that coffee.”

Harry glances up at him. It takes next to no effort, because apparently his head is in Zayn’s lap.

“Sorry,” he says, none too contritely. Zayn is too bony to make a good pillow, yet Harry’s surprisingly comfortable where he is.

A hint of amusement tugs at the corner of Zayn’s mouth, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Were you taking photos of me?” Harry asks belatedly. His nose is almost brushing the tattoo on Zayn’s hipbone. He knows how sensitive this area is, it’s so easy to imagine Zayn making a small noise when the needle touches his skin, half pain, half something else.

“Nah, I was just trying to wake you up,” Zayn admits, face splitting into a grin when Harry gives him a sullen look under his eyelashes.

He smells nice, like sun cream and cigarette smoke, and he’s saying something that Harry should probably be paying attention to, instead of wondering if the buzzing of the tattoo gun makes Zayn achingly hard too, blissed out and glassy-eyed as new lines and shapes are being etched on his body.

“Oi!” The trace of annoyance in Zayn’s voice suggests that he’s said it more than once.

Harry blinks. “What?”

“I asked if you’d be up for it,” Zayn enunciates, slow enough to make it sound rude despite his amiable tone, and points at his camera. It’s a good thing that Harry’s not easily offended. Or, okay, he kind of is, but turned on takes precedence over miffed. Priorities and all.

“Yeah, alright.” He can get behind that, Harry decides, the ‘if you know what I mean’ hot on the heels of that thought. He’s snickering when he turns his head to stare up at Zayn, cheek pressing against his belly. “You want me to, like, do something?”

“Might have to get off me for starters.” The curve of Zayn’s lips is unmistakably smirky, so if Harry rolls off him and stretches out on his back a touch too extravagantly, well, Zayn started it.

He runs a hand through his messy curls in a half-arsed attempt to make himself presentable and catches Zayn giving him a not-so-subtle once-over. A tendril of heat stirs lazily in Harry’s stomach and yeah, there’s definitely something here—the stumbling into pub toilets with a nameless girl’s mouth attached to his dick, or the getting down on all fours for some bloke he’s met ten minutes before kind of something, seems like.

He drags his teeth along his bottom lip to test his theory, and Zayn’s eyes immediately drop to his mouth.

Harry is so delighted that he lets out a rather undignified giggle, which startles a laugh out of Zayn, and the charged silence between them is broken.

“Right. Uh.” Zayn clears his throat, jumping to his feet. “Just…stay like that,“ he mumbles, fiddling with the camera. Harry nods and closes his eyes, tilting his face towards the sun. After a moment or two, he hears a quiet _click click click_ above him. “You’ve got a good face,” Zayn says under his breath.

“Yours is not bad either.” Harry squints up at him. He’s leaning over him, partially blocking the light; his face is a shadow, soft eyes, a small smile and stray locks of hair falling over his forehead. Harry smiles back, and Zayn quickly snaps another photo.

“This’ll do,“ he says, looking pleased. “Thanks.”

He lowers himself to the ground again, and Harry sits up, their shoulders brushing. Zayn lets go of a breath but doesn’t move away.

Harry tries to make some kind of small talk for a few minutes, but Zayn has apparently decided to be difficult; all Harry manages to get out of him is that he lives in London. He rolls his eyes at Harry’s expectant stare, then tells him that his hobby is photography, grinning like a right twat.

Harry likes to think of himself as a peaceful, nonviolent person, so he calmly decides against headbutting Zayn right in his perfect nose. He’s been known to have semi-successful conversations with small rodents and brick walls, after all, so instead he beams at Zayn as if he’s just discovered that they’re long-lost cousins. Or, no, he amends quickly with an involuntary shudder—long-lost friends who share absolutely no DNA and are not related whatsoever.

“So are you here on holiday?” Harry asks.

“Sort of.” Zayn makes a show of watching his toes wiggle. “You always ask so many questions?”

“Do you ever answer any?”

Harry’s always had a way with people, but he himself couldn’t say where his natural sociability ends and the conscious, purposeful drive begins. He wants to know people, is the thing, their warmth and their cruelty, their masks and fears and needs, and be the one to slot a missing piece of their puzzle into place before he goes. And something about how deeply he wants, how careless and open and unapologetic he is about it seems to draw people to him, makes them want to come closer and touch. He always lets them.

It takes its toll, leaving behind fragments of himself so recklessly, but it’s comforting too, when he lies awake some nights, the thought that someone, somewhere might be thinking of him.  

There’s a certain brokenness to Zayn too, the air of weariness of someone who has to work every minute of every day to hold the pieces together. Harry knows a Sisyphean task when he sees one, but he can also recognise kindness, unfailingly drawn to it in all its manifestations.

Zayn is considering him with narrowed eyes, head tilted to the side. The scrutiny makes Harry a little uneasy; he’s not used to people returning the favour.

“You ever tried grilled octopus?” Zayn asks.

It takes more than a sudden topic change to throw Harry off. More often than not, he’ll be engaged in several different discussions with himself simultaneously, while also taking part in actual conversations. He manages just fine, if a bit on the slow side.

“I had grilled cactus once,” he says thoughtfully.

Zayn looks like he’s thinking about laughing.

“Alright.” He stands up, picking up his T-shirt from the ground. “C’mon, there’s a taverna right over there, on that cliff. I’ll buy.”

The muscles in his back shift and flex as he pulls the T-shirt on; there’s a tattoo on the back of his neck, strangely delicate between his shoulders, like a touch of lace over bare skin.

Harry wants to put his mouth on it so badly, it makes him lightheaded for a moment.

Zayn pauses with his arms halfway into the T-shirt sleeves and turns to look at him questioningly.

Harry starts, snapping out of his reverie. “I—yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Wrapping the camera strap around his wrist, Zayn reaches for Harry’s hand to help him up.

He doesn’t let go of it as he leads the way to the restaurant, and Harry’s perfectly okay with that. Thankful, in fact, because the path turns steeply upwards, and Harry’s foot-eye coordination is, quite frankly, a bit shit.

The taverna is a simple wooden hut, rustic in a homy way, but its wide porch with lattice railings extends almost to the edge of the cliff, overlooking the sea. It’s mad, really, just an endless expanse of sky and light and water, one of those views that make you want to stare until they’re seared into your mind; kind of like Zayn’s face.

They sit across from each other, silent, just gazing into the sea until the owner rushes over to greet them, a couple of leather-bound menus with worn edges tucked under his arm. He asks Zayn something, patting his shoulder with easy familiarity that Harry immediately envies. Zayn smiles, putting his thumbs up, which makes the thin, balding man beam at him.

“Do you speak Greek?” Harry asks when the owner goes back inside.

Zayn shakes his head. “He always asks the same thing, ‘everything okay’ or summat.”

“How do you know?”

“I bought a phrase book.”

“A phrase book? Like, not an app or whatever, an actual phrase book?” Harry cackles, then slaps a hand over his mouth.

“Don’t.” Zayn leans over the table to tug on his wrist. “You’re cute.”

“And you’re a geek!”

“You know what, yeah, just keep that hand there,” Zayn decides.

Conversation over lunch is easy; it’s mostly Harry talking, with Zayn throwing in a word or two here and there. He tells Harry that he’s been on the island for about ten days, which wasn’t the original plan, but he likes it here and he’s not in any hurry to leave; Harry wholeheartedly approves.

Zayn seems interested enough in his ramblings about hitchhiking and seashell collections and writing. He makes a noise of sympathy when he hears that Harry’s mum has barely spoken to him since he told her he was dropping out of uni and quitting his internship at an insurance company.

“She thinks I’ve gone and cocked up my life,” Harry says. He takes a long pull of beer and goes back to peeling the gold label off the sweating bottle.

They’re both stretched out in their chairs, sated and lazy. The restaurant is empty except for an elderly couple sitting a few tables over from them. It’s quiet enough that Harry can hear the owner singing along to some plaintive ballad inside.

“Have you?” Zayn asks, and it takes Harry a second to retrace the conversation.

He shrugs with a self-deprecating smile. “I wanted to study English Lit, you know, but my mum thought it wouldn’t be a smart career choice. She was probably right, but the thing is, I’d rather chew my arm off than spend another day in a cubicle with a stack of insurance claims, so.”

“So you left?” Zayn eyes him over the rim of his shades, oddly intense all of a sudden, and Harry starts picking at the label again.

“Couldn’t think of a reason to stay.”

“I reckon that’s reason enough not to,” Zayn offers softly. Harry’s chest inexplicably tightens.

“Your turn,” he says faintly. Their hands are touching on the table, pinky fingers brushing together, and Harry’s not sure when that happened.

“I’ll pass.” The corner of Zayn’s mouth kicks up, and he really leaves Harry no choice but to stick out his bottom lip and heave a dejected sigh.

Zayn hesitates for a fraction of a second, but it’s enough. Harry bats his eyelashes sadly, and after a beat Zayn huffs out a chuckle.

“Alright, alright, fuck. Stop that.” He shakes his head, but he’s smiling a little. “I don’t—like, what do you wanna know?”

“You’re really bad at this, aren’t you?”

Zayn kicks him under the table; it’s more of a nudge, really, so Harry just locks their ankles together and lets it slide.

“I just graduated.” Zayn rubs his neck, looking so flustered that Harry has to stifle a giggle; he doesn’t want to discourage him. “Investment stuff. S’boring.”

“More boring than Actuarial science?”

Zayn chuckles, shoulders relaxing slightly. “Close enough.”

“And then what?” Harry prompts.

“You were _that_ kid, weren’t you? Bet reading bedtime stories to you was a riot.”

Harry throws a balled-up paper napkin at him, and Zayn catches it, laughing.

“And then nothing,” he says. “I randomly fucked off to Italy, and now I’m here. I’ve no idea what I’m doing.”

Harry leans back in his chair, watching him with a smile. “Kind of the point, innit? Where are you staying, by the way?”

Zayn bites his lip, and Harry promptly loses his train of thought, so when Zayn points to something in the distance, he frowns in confusion. “What?”

“The boat.”

“Boat?” Harry turns to follow his gaze and does a double take. “Zayn. That’s a yacht. A bloody _big_ yacht,” he adds, just to be sure they’re looking at the same thing. It’s the only vessel in sight, though, so assuming that Zayn’s not referring to some economical two-seater Flying Dutchman that only he can see, which is possible, Harry supposes, but not very likely—

“Holy shit.” Harry gapes at him. Zayn fidgets in his chair. “Is it yours?”

“My father’s.”

“He let you borrow his yacht? What a guy!”

Zayn snorts. “Guess he didn’t mind not having me around for a while.”

Harry’s enthusiasm wavers, eyes flicking back to Zayn’s face. “Why would he—”

“You should come hang out sometime?” Zayn says quickly. “If you want?”

Harry drums his fingers on the table, feeling torn. Such a piss poor attempt at diversion deserves to be exposed just on principle, but on the other hand, well, Zayn _and_ the yacht.

“Fine,” he grumbles, and Zayn shoots him a shit-eating grin.

“Alright then. You staying at the hotel?”

“No, that cottage over there.” Harry waves in the general direction of the house; he can see it from up here, perched on top of the small hill. “Not sure for how long, though. Euphrosyne looked like she wanted to box my ears when I tried to pay, so I’ve no idea if I can afford to stay there.”

“Euphrosyne?” Zayn raises his eyebrows. “I don’t think she rents out, mate.” He rocks back in his chair, grin widening. “Loves her strays, though. I helped her carry home two kittens she found on the street last week. At least you’re less likely to bite and scratch.”

“Well.” Harry flashes him his best dimpled smile.

Zayn laughs, slamming the front legs of the chair down on the floor. Shaking his head, he rakes his eyes over Harry. “It’s always the sweet ones.”

Harry bites back a smirk.

This is going to be the best September ever.

 

 

 

 

Harry wakes up early; folding himself onto the tiled balcony floor, chin on his knees, he amuses himself for a while by trying to come up with names for all the colours washing across the horizon—peaches and coral, primrose yellow and candy floss pink. He’s getting better at this, he decides, pleased.

It inspires him enough to do a bit of yoga, filling his lungs with salty air and sea breeze.

Euphrosyne is in the kitchen, piling food onto plates. She hands Harry one with a quick grin.

They chat cheerfully over breakfast, Harry in English, Euphrosyne in Greek. He gives the pot of coffee a betrayed look before pouring himself a cup of tea, and Euphrosyne scoffs.

When Harry hesitantly tries to broach the money question again, she practically stuffs a whole hard-boiled egg into his mouth, furrowing her brow in annoyance.

He sighs in defeat, still chewing, and decides to tell her about Zayn instead. Euphrosyne laughs delightedly, cooing ‘ooh, Zayn’ and fluttering her eyelashes dreamily in what Harry imagines is a fairly accurate imitation of him.

“Shut up,” he mutters, snickering.

He gets the scooter out afterwards and goes exploring. The roads don’t look as bad in the daylight, and he keeps stopping every mile to take a photo on his phone.

He pulls over when he spots a secluded cove, the electric-blue water so clear that he can see the stones at the bottom. As he makes his way to the beach, Harry leisurely strips down to his boxer briefs. He considers taking them off too but decides against it. There’s not a soul in sight, but this close to the road anyone driving by would get more of a view than they probably bargained for.

When he gets tired of swimming, he just splashes happily in the shallows for a while. The salt water makes his skin itch, but as he puts his clothes back on—sans underwear—he’s in too good a mood to let that bother him.

About twenty minutes later he reaches a village with cobblestone streets, lined with the flowering shrubs that grow everywhere on the island. There’s a street market around the corner, stands laden with fruit and vegetables and homemade olive oil and wine, jewellery and colourful rugs. Harry gets so excited he nearly falls off the scooter.

By noon, he’s back at Euphrosyne’s with a bag full of groceries and a new fedora; the girl he bought it from had winked at him and then blushed furiously.

He prepares an elaborate lunch for Euphrosyne, and she is so touched that she kisses him three times on each cheek.

Harry doesn’t mean to fall asleep on the bench in the backyard, but there’s a bird chirping in the lemon tree above him, the air is heavy with the scent of flowers and mint, and the afternoon sunlight filters through the leaves and branches to flicker over his face, and he’s out like a light.

The sun is setting when he opens his eyes again. The bird’s gone, replaced by a small army of cicadas.

He stretches luxuriously, back arching, and something slides off him onto the ground.

“Do you purr when someone pets you?” a voice next to him asks.

Harry’s still too sleepy to be startled, plus the voice is smooth and warm and rich like mulled wine.

He tips his head back to look at Zayn upside down and grins lazily. “Depends which part of me they’re petting.”

Chuckling, Zayn pushes away from the lemon tree he’d been leaning against to sit on edge of the bench. He picks up a leather jacket from the ground and slings it over his shoulder.

“Hi,” Harry murmurs.

Zayn smiles. “Hey.”

He brushes the curls out of Harry’s eyes, and Harry does feel like purring, if he’s honest.

“Did you cover me with your jacket?”

Zayn shrugs, chewing on his bottom lip bashfully, and Harry has the overwhelming urge to snog the life out of him.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Zayn looks scandalised. “I’m not a savage! Sleep is important.”

Harry laughs. “You’re so weird.”

“Pot, kettle.” Zayn pokes his finger through the hole of Harry’s jeans and scratches gently at his knee. “What did you do today?”

“Rode around the island,” Harry says, thoughtful for a second before launching into a detailed description of the fish he saw and the rock he’d cut his foot on, the street market and the dress one of the women was wearing, a yellow so bright that it made her look like a pretty canary.

Zayn seems a bit dazed.

“Harry,” he says, sort of incredulously.

“And I bought a fedora,” Harry concludes abruptly.

Zayn’s eyebrows do a thing, and he shakes his head like he wants to roll his eyes and pinch Harry’s cheeks at the same time. It emboldens Harry enough to add, “Then I made lunch for Euphrosyne and had a kip.”

“Why?” There’s an odd expression on Zayn’s face that Harry can’t read.

He frowns. “I must’ve been tired?”

This time Zayn does roll his eyes. “The lunch.”

“Oh.” Harry shrugs. “Thought she might like it. There’s still some left, if you’re hungry. Why are you staring at me like that?”

Flashing him a quick smile, Zayn leans in again, lips brushing Harry’s cheekbone.

“Like making people happy, do you, Harry?” he whispers against his skin.

Harry closes his eyes; he wants to pull Zayn closer and rub himself all over him like a cat, wants to feel the rasp of Zayn’s stubble against his skin, to press down on the angry red marks in the shower later and feel them sting and burn as he gets himself off.

When the full weight of Zayn’s words sinks in, though, he freezes.

“Is there anything wrong with that?” he asks stiffly.

After a beat, Zayn just presses a small kiss to his temple and stands up.

“D’you have any plans for tomorrow?” He smiles again as if nothing’s happened, and Harry sits up to look at him.

“No, why?”

“Thought we could hang out.”

“Yeah?” Harry actually claps his hands in glee. “You gonna show me around the yacht? Oh my God, stop grinning like a twat. If you offer to show me the inside of your cabin, I swear I’ll kick you.” He smothers a giggle when Zayn gives him huge innocent eyes. “Hey, is there like, a Captain and everything?”

“Yeah. So. Eleven a.m.? M’not much of a morning person.” Zayn shoves his hands in his pockets. The line of his back is rigid, like he’d rather break than bend, his jaw set stubbornly, but he’s rocking on the balls of his feet as though he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it.

Harry rests his chin in the palm of his hand with a slow smile, and Zayn stills, shooting him a searching look.

“Alright,” Harry says. “Eleven’s good.”

 

 

 

 

“That’s not a yacht, Zayn, it’s a fucking cruise ship,” Harry blurts, awed.

Zayn ducks his head with an awkward little shrug as he leads Harry up to the sundeck. Under the shade of a white canopy, blowing softly in the breeze, are several sun loungers and sofas; large cushions are scattered about the wooden floor.

“Sick.” Harry tosses him a grin over his shoulder. “It’s like a Roman orgy waiting to happen.”

“Never again,” Zayn says, stretching out on one of the sun loungers. “It’s a bitch to clean up afterwards.”

Harry throws his head back and laughs. “The yacht or yourself?”

Zayn snorts. “Both.”

Harry’s cock gives an interested twitch in his jeans, and Jesus, is that all it takes now?

“You know what’s the worst?” he asks in retaliation, ambling over to Zayn. “Getting candle wax out of your chest hair.”

Zayn lowers his gaze onto his bare chest, as if by reflex, then huffs out a laugh. Wrapping his fingers around Harry’s wrist, he pulls him down on top of him. “What chest hair?”

Harry pouts, and Zayn mimics him mockingly.

“You’re kind of a prick,” Harry says, making no move to get off him.

“I kind of am,” Zayn agrees easily, running his thumb over Harry’s wrist bone. “Candle wax, huh?”

Harry shakes his hair out of his eyes, suddenly a bit breathless. “Wasn’t my idea, to be honest.”

Zayn tightens his hold on him for a moment, smirking when Harry’s eyelids flutter, then lets go and places his hand on the armrest.

“I could do with a beer,” he says wistfully. “There’s a six-pack in the fridge—”

Harry’s already opening it when he realises that Zayn is chuckling. He flushes, thrusting the beer can into Zayn’s hand.

“Thank you, babe,” Zayn drawls, eyes sparkling. He looks like a little rascal, but there’s something lurking behind the playful grin, something a touch darker and unmistakably grown-up. It’s a disconcerting combination.

“Piss off,” Harry mumbles. He settles in next to him again, flinging his leg over Zayn’s, and Zayn wordlessly drapes an arm over his shoulders.

They lounge in the shade for a while, both of them shirtless and a little sweaty but apparently equally disinclined to put any space between them. Conversation is slow as they watch spots of sunlight float on the sea surface, but the long stretches of silence feel good, companionable, and Harry finds himself enjoying it.

Some deep house mix is playing at low volume, melting into the sound of the waves quietly splashing against the hull of the yacht.

Zayn disappears inside for a few minutes and returns with a joint between his lips. He lifts a questioning eyebrow as he settles back onto the sun lounger, and Harry shakes his head sadly.

“Never had the lungs for that.” He already feels floaty anyway, pleasantly heavy with sleep.

Zayn frowns. “Does the smoke bother you? I can—”

“Shut up.” He rolls over and straddles Zayn’s thighs, head dropping drowsily on his shoulder.

Zayn looks down at him with a smile, tangling his hand in Harry’s hair to scratch behind his ear.

Harry watches with lazy fascination the way Zayn’s lips move when he takes a drag off the joint, the flash of pink tongue when he licks them, head tipped back against the chair as he lets the smoke flow out of his mouth, and Harry wants, he just—he _wants._

Sitting up, he braces his palms on either side of Zayn’s head and bends in to lick into his mouth without preamble.

It’s not his smoothest move, and Zayn makes a surprised noise, puffing a cloud of smoke in his face, but then he parts his lips, and yes, Harry thinks hazily, God yes.

After a beat, Zayn pulls back and reaches around Harry to drop the stub into the beer can; his breath is hot on Harry’s cheek.

He nips at Zayn’s bottom lip hopefully. “Yeah?”

Slipping an arm around his waist, Zayn tugs him closer. “Yeah.”

The kiss feels vaguely like something that shouldn’t be done on a sunlit deck in the middle of the day. It belongs to crumbling moments past 3 a.m. in dark, rain-soaked alleyways, to blurry memories that taste like cheap vodka and strangers’ lips, to nights that leave you with teeth marks on your shoulder rather than a phone number scribbled in the palm of your hand.

They move with the rocking of the yacht, Harry’s knees pressed against Zayn’s sides and Zayn’s hands sliding down Harry’s back to curl around his waist.

Harry rolls his hips, grinds against him harder, and Zayn groans, burying his face in the crook of Harry’s neck. He presses a lingering, probably unintentionally sweet kiss right over his pulse, and Harry’s eyes snap open, throat tightening.

Zayn’s eyelashes curl upwards, casting delicate shadows over his cheeks, Harry notices suddenly; there’s a tiny dip in his lower lip, and his dark hair curves around his ear. Something about it looks so inexplicably vulnerable that it makes Harry want to wrap himself around him protectively.

It’s absurd, of course. He can’t do that, and he doesn’t need to.

His hand is shaking when he runs his fingertips down Zayn’s cheek, pausing at the corner of his mouth. Zayn turns his head to kiss his fingers, and it doesn’t mean anything, Harry knows it doesn’t, but something inside him still clenches like a fist.

He rubs the tip of his nose against Zayn’s, and Zayn smiles, pressing his thumb to Harry’s chin.

They’re so close that everything goes a little hazy, out of focus, but their eyes stay open as though neither wants to be the first to close them. Their lips brush, fingers intertwining, and it’s soft this time, gentle, the edge of lust dulled by a new, tentative tenderness.

“Look at us,” Zayn murmurs against his mouth, “we can do slow and sweet too.”

Harry chuckles, feeling the low rumble of Zayn’s answering laugh against his chest.

“Look at us,” he echoes.

 

 

 

 

“Harry, get the fuck down,” Zayn snaps as the small motorboat enters the cave, and Harry ducks right before the low stone ceiling can collide with his forehead.

Zayn rolls his eyes.

“I saw that,” Harry grumbles. “This is actually really dangerous. Don’t know how I let you talk me into it.”

Zayn turns the engine off. He looks like he’s trying not to laugh.

“You choked on a fucking cocktail cherry yesterday, trying to tie the stem into a knot with your tongue,” he reminds him, rather unkindly, Harry thinks. “This is safer.”

“I did tie it, and it was hot!”

“Right until I had to do the Heimlich maneuver on you.”

“Twat.” Harry slumps in his seat and folds his arms across his chest, resolving to stop talking to him.

No, he _is_ going to talk to him, Harry decides three and a half seconds later, because Zayn isn’t making any sense.

“Aren’t you, like, deathly afraid of water?” he demands. “Why’re you cruising around in boats all the time?”

“I’m not deathly afraid—”

“Yes you are.”

Zayn scowls at him. “I’m not actually _in_ the water, but I’ve noticed that the concept confuses you.”

Harry scowls back. “What are you on about?”

“How many times have you fallen overboard this week?”

Harry’s ready to bristle, but. Well.

“The second one was on purpose,” he mutters.

Zayn shakes his head, silent as he deftly steers the boat alongside the wall of the cave. He makes everything look so bloody easy, Harry thinks indignantly.

It’s extremely annoying. Also a huge turn-on; Harry’s in two minds.

Zayn does laugh this time and okay, apparently he said that out loud.

“C’mon, babe,” Zayn cajoles, “look around.”

Harry considers pouting some more, but his curiosity gets the better of him. He peeks over the side of the boat and gasps. “Zayn!”

Zayn slides closer to him on the plastic bench, and Harry leans back into him without looking away from the water.

Beams of sunlight slip through the cracks and bounce off the stone arches and walls. The water is a translucent cornflower blue, glowing like a brightly lit swimming pool at night.

It’s like being in a room full of mirrors, and Harry doesn’t know where to look first.

“Zayn,” he breathes, gobsmacked.

“Pretty, yeah?”

Harry turns around to plant an enthusiastic kiss on Zayn’s lips that has him chuckling, before leaning precariously over the edge of the boat again.

“Oh my God, all that’s missing is the mermaids!”

Zayn tugs at the back of his T-shirt. “Can you not do that?”

“This is possibly the best thing I’ve ever seen.” Harry flings himself back in his seat, smiling. “Well, that and your stupid face.”

Zayn looks so pleased that Harry wants to kiss him again.

They end up cuddling instead, his chin on Zayn’s chest as he twirls one of Harry’s curls around his fingers.

“I like your tattoos,” Harry murmurs, stroking Zayn’s forearm.

“Yeah? Yours are a mess.”

“Hey.”

“Nah, they suit you,” Zayn admits, running a finger over the rose on Harry’s arm.

Harry gives him a suspicious look. “’Cause I’m weird and all over the place?”

Zayn laughs. “We’re spending too much time together.”

“Well, I’m trying to get in your pants, so.” Harry grins up at him. He’s teasing. Mostly.

He hisses when Zayn yanks on his hair.

“You try to get in everyone’s pants, babe. Saw you chatting up that bird at the beach bar the other night.” He cups the back of Harry’s neck, gaze drifting down to his mouth, and Harry’s suddenly having trouble breathing. “Did you?” Zayn asks softly, tracing his thumb over the pulse point.

“Did I what?”

“Get in her pants.”

Harry swallows. “No,” he says slowly, meeting Zayn’s eyes. “Jealous, dearie?”

“Don’t call me that,” Zayn tells him, for the hundredth time this week. He’s starting to sound resigned, though, so Harry thinks he’ll probably stop whinging about it soon, which is a pity.

“That wasn’t a no,” he sings-songs, and Zayn snorts, letting go of him.

Harry props himself up on his elbow; low in his stomach, something is fluttering and tingling, and he has the most irrational urge to giggle. “Zayn.”

Zayn sighs, chewing on his bottom lip. “This is—I’m so fucking—” He breaks off, shaking his head. “You know, it took me three years to kiss a bloke for the first time.”

Unsure of where this is going, Harry says carefully, “Okay, so you needed time. Most people do.”

“Took me half that time to get shitfaced at a party and suck some random guy’s dick.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Zayn smiles wryly.

“Makes sense, though. I mean, sex is the easier part, right?” Harry lifts a shoulder.

“You’re wise beyond your years.”

Harry swats at him, laughing. “You’re such a wanker, why am I being nice to you?”

Zayn grabs his flailing arm and draws him back against his chest. Harry goes easily.

“What’s that mean, exactly?” he asks after a beat.

“Means you probably shouldn’t be so fucking chuffed that I’m jealous,” Zayn tells him, carding his fingers through Harry’s hair again.

“Mhmm.” Harry leans into his hand. “So you _are_ jealous?”

“This is so going to go pear-shaped,” Zayn mutters.

“So the first guy you kissed.” Harry hesitates. “Were you together, or?”

“Not really.” Zayn pauses, looking thoughtful. “He was there, and I wanted him, and I’d finally figured out that you can’t, in fact, will it away, so.”

Harry tenses. “Did someone say that to you?” Zayn shrugs. “Who?”

“My father is…he means well, you know, he’s a good man, but like, set in his ways.” Zayn shrugs again. “They’re his ways, not mine.”

Harry reaches for him, cupping his face in his hands, but Zayn averts it, so he drops them into his lap.

“Did he make you leave?” His voice falters.

“No.” Zayn’s still not looking at him. “No, he wanted me to start working for him full-time, actually, but I wasn’t quite there yet.”

“Oh.” Harry nods. “Boring investment stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that what you want?”

Zayn frowns. “I’ve always known that’s what I’d be doing.”

“Okay.” He has a million questions, and his hands are itching to touch, to hold, to learn the shape and sharp edges of Zayn’s cracked and broken pieces, but Zayn’s brow furrows even more, so he just repeats, “Okay.“

He locks his hands together, just in case, and says conversationally, “My mum walked in on me having a threesome once.” Zayn makes a choking sound. “With a guy and a girl,” Harry adds.

“I—”

“Just thought I’d share.”

“Thank you.” Zayn’s lips twitch; it’s little more than a shadow of a smile, but it makes Harry’s breath come easier. “I feel so much closer to you.”

“Are you snickering?” He gasps dramatically. “Zayn! It was a very traumatic experience. I couldn’t look her in the eye for weeks after that.”

“You’re mental.” Zayn rubs his eyes with the back of his hands, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, before grinning up at him. “S’alright, you can stop humiliating yourself now.”

Harry nudges Zayn’s knee with his. “Never had a problem with that.”

“She’s cool with it, though?” Zayn asks after a moment. “That you’re into blokes?”

“Yeah. She’s never—she always tries to be supportive.” He stares up at the cave ceiling; it sparkles down at him. “I can tell she wishes I’d turned out differently, though. Sometimes I do too.”

Zayn shifts to press his lips to Harry’s temple. “You really shouldn’t.”

“We are such a cliché,” Harry snorts. “This is like, Holden Caulfield levels of youth angst.”

Zayn pulls back and wrinkles his nose. “ _Harry_.” Harry pokes his tongue out at him and Zayn chuckles. “Brat.”

“Yeah,” Harry says readily, rubbing his cheek against Zayn’s shoulder. He shivers against him, and Harry lifts his eyelashes slowly, licking his lips; Zayn’s breath catches audibly. “I can be good, though,” Harry purrs. “I can be so good for you.”

Zayn freezes, eyes gone almost black, big and unblinking, and Harry can’t help it; he giggles, burrowing his head into Zayn’s chest.

Groaning, Zayn smacks his arm. “Fuck off, you can’t just say shit like that!”

“Mmph,” Harry replies.

“What?”

He likes Zayn, is the thing. He’s been happier these past few days than he’s been in years, and they haven’t even got to the best part yet. Well, he may have started without Zayn, nearly wanking himself blind thinking about his mouth, but point is, he _likes_ him, and he’s not ready for him to look at Harry the way others have in the past.

But Zayn’s face is open and beautiful and kind, and it does something funny to his heart, which suddenly feels too big for his chest, so, _fuck it_ _,_ Harry decides.

He sits up.

“I’m not,” he tells him. “Just saying it, I mean. It’s kind of a…thing for me.” He bites his lip, watching Zayn anxiously.

He sees the exact moment when it clicks. Zayn tilts his head to the side, eyes turning sharp and alert. His hand stays on the small of Harry’s back, however, as gentle as ever, and a trickle of warmth seeps into Harry’s bloodstream, relaxing his muscles and loosening the knots in his stomach.

“Spell it out for me, please,” Zayn says in that deliberate, measured way he’s got when he focuses his full attention on something; right now it makes Harry burn a bit brighter.

“I do like making people happy. Being whatever they need me to be. I…” He exhales shakily, fisting his hand in his hair, “…am not used to having this conversation with my clothes on.”

“So take them off,” Zayn suggests helpfully, and Harry lets out a breathy laugh.

Zayn smiles at him, holding his stare as he nods and runs his knuckles down the side of Harry’s face. Harry knows he’s fucking done for.

Another boat approaches the entrance, and they reluctantly extricate themselves so Zayn can steer their boat out of the cave and towards the pier.

Harry watches his profile, his steady, capable hands, his hair blowing about in the wind, face closing off as he painstakingly buries his own mosaic of broken fragments back beneath the surface.

Sliding closer, he drapes himself over Zayn’s back, arms around his waist.

“You don’t have to do that, if you don’t want to. There’s no one around,” he says into Zayn’s ear, feeling like he’s crossing every line they’ve carefully drawn in the sand. “No one will see.”

Zayn flinches, looking down at Harry’s hands as though waiting for him to reconsider and pull back.

He doesn’t.

“We’re not doing the whole saving or fixing, or whatever thing, yeah?” Zayn mutters, voice rough.

Harry hums dismissively. “You really think I could, even if I wanted to?”

“Do you?”

He hooks his chin over Zayn’s shoulder. “I kind of like you as you are.”

For a fraction of a second Zayn goes rigid in his arms, then he sinks back into Harry with a sigh, turning his head to press their cheeks together.

He doesn’t say anything, quiet in a way that Harry already knows means he’s thinking too hard. As he helps Harry out of the boat, however, he links their fingers and doesn’t let go.

 

 

 

 

They spend the next two weeks exploring the island together, looking for secluded beaches tucked away from the main road and the tourist crowds. Harry splashes in the water, doing his best whale impression, while Zayn rolls his eyes at him from the shore with a smile.

Zayn’s camera is always at hand, snapping photo after photo of Harry—swimming, modeling his fedora or running errands for Euphrosyne. They take a few selfies together, pulling stupid faces and cackling as though it’s the funniest thing in the world, and then kissing like their lives depend on it. Harry bugs him until Zayn sends him that one and makes it his lock screen. Zayn calls him a twit and kisses him again.

He can’t believe he ever thought Zayn was aloof. He’s stubborn and blunt and has zero tolerance for bollocks, but he’s also silly, sweet and ready to laugh at himself. When his discarded shirt got whisked away by the wind the day before, Zayn had shrugged off his cool, smooth persona like a winter coat and chased after the shirt, doing this awkward little half run like a clumsy duckling, complete with an honest-to-God giggle, and fuck, Harry’s so, so far gone it should terrify him, but it doesn’t.

When the air gets heavy and sticky and even the cicadas grow quiet, sometimes they go to a small café with a garden overlooking the sea, where they spend the afternoons dozing or reading in a gently swinging hammock under the shade of an olive tree, often not saying a word for hours. Sitting on the bow of the yacht at night, shoulders pressed together and the star-studded sky like a crystal dome above their heads, they talk about books and least favourite foods, first crushes and last heartbreaks.

Harry flirts with him outrageously, Zayn’s hands somehow always end up on Harry’s back or thigh or waist or arse as though he just can’t help it, and they spend so much time snogging that their lips start to go a little numb, but that’s about it. It feels like they are forging something, something real and good, and they’re both hesitant to make a move for fear of disrupting the fragile balance.

Euphrosyne still refuses to accept money from Harry, so he’s taken to doing the grocery shopping and helping around the house. Sometimes he cooks, and Zayn helps, if he’s bored enough like tonight. They decide to stay in after dinner, curled up together on the sofa, and keep Euphrosyne company for the evening. She picks up her knitting and listens to them talk over each other in mumbled half sentences. Harry suspects it would drive anyone who actually speaks English and tries to keep track of the conversation mad, but Euphrosyne just smiles indulgently and knits her scarf. She’s hilariously bad at it; the stitches keep slipping off the needles or getting tangled, and Euphrosyne mutters viciously under her breath, words that Harry doesn’t need to understand to guess their meaning.

“Euphrosyne,” he chides, shaking his finger at her, “not in front of the kittens.”

She throws a ball of yarn at him, making him guffaw. Zayn and the two kittens in his lap look on with a very feline air of amused scepticism.

In the morning (which, according to Zayn, is the time of day between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.), they bicker about who wants to do what. They always manage to work out a compromise, somehow, because spending the day apart is apparently not an option—even when Harry drags him to the street market and takes an hour picking up, feeling and smelling tomatoes, while Zayn looks like he’s reciting the periodic table in his head.

Taking advantage of a moment of distraction on Harry’s part, Zayn pays for his purchases. It’s a source of constant friction between them, that, because he keeps doing it without even asking, and then silently stares Harry down until he huffs and holds his hands up in mock surrender, or kisses Harry’s pout away, if he’s in one of his mellower moods.

Zayn in turn becomes engrossed in the longest, most boring conversation Harry’s ever had the misfortune to listen to, about some antique map print with one of the sellers. He tunes out their words after a while and simply watches him. Zayn, that is, not the seller—he’s probably older than the print. Zayn’s eyes are bright with excitement, and he’s talking with his hands, and damned if Harry’s not going to keep smiling and nodding along.

He buys Zayn a small silver ship wheel charm on a leather cord later and, suddenly flustered, slaps it into his palm without a word. It’s cheesy and childish, and Zayn’s staring at it as if he’s never seen a piece of jewellery before, which Harry knows is not the case, because Zayn’s wearing enough huge, heavy rings on his fingers to make his refusal to go into the water a rather sensible decision, and—

Zayn pulls him into some narrow dead-end alley between two houses and presses him up against a wall. Harry…well, squeaks, really. Breathing out a laugh, Zayn leans in to kiss him. He’s not fucking about either, gripping Harry’s arse to pull him closer and licking his mouth open.

Harry groans when their tongues touch, shoves his hands under Zayn’s T-shirt to dig his fingers into the muscles of his back, kissing him so hard that Zayn gasps against his mouth.

He makes a petulant sound when Zayn breaks away from him, biting Harry’s lip playfully.

“Thanks, babe,” he murmurs, snorting when Harry just blinks at him.

Zayn wraps the leather cord around his wrist several times, then, glancing up at him from under his eyelashes, asks Harry to help him tie it, shy all of a sudden. Harry thinks he’ll never want anyone more than he wants Zayn in that moment.

At the end of Harry’s third week on the island they go to one of the night clubs in the capital town and get spectacularly pissed. They stumble out of a cab at dawn, wearing glow bracelets that become increasingly hilarious the more they look at them.

The small harbour is so quiet that their shuffling footsteps echo as they make their way to the yacht. Their hands brush, and Zayn curls his fingers around Harry’s wrist. There’s something possessive about the way he’s touching him, and Harry’s heart trips over itself like the traitorous fool it is.

“You good?” Zayn asks when he frowns.

“Yes, I love tonight,” Harry proclaims loudly, startling a stray cat.

Zayn shushes him, and Harry shushes back, giggling.

“You won’t remember tonight,” Zayn slurs. He’s a lot less sober than he probably thinks he is.

Harry does remember the vodka, a lot of vodka, and the pretty lights. He also remembers one of the dancers kissing Zayn, which had somehow escalated into a sloppy three-way kiss, at least until Harry managed to edge the girl out of the way. Zayn had laughed, because he’s a fucking prick, before kissing Harry to within an inch of his life in the middle of the crowded dance floor. Staggering and knocking into the people around them, they had clung to each other, breathless, frantic, clothes sticking to their sweaty skin and lips tingling from the alcohol.

Back on the yacht, Harry insists on staying awake to see the sunrise. Zayn looks thoroughly appalled.

“We can watch the sunset instead,” he offers hopefully. “Yeah, babe? After we get some sleep?”

“It’s not the same thing, Zayn,” Harry says mulishly as he flops onto a sun lounger.

Zayn goes back inside, and Harry can hear him grumbling, but he does return with a blanket. He pushes Harry rather unceremoniously so he can squeeze in beside him and spreads the blanket over both of them. Pressing his cheek to the top of Harry’s head, he’s out like a light.

Harry sighs and nuzzles into his neck; he can close his eyes for just a minute.

They wake up at noon, and Harry’s a bit pissy about the missed sunrise. Zayn has the mother of all hangovers, though, so he keeps his mouth shut, hands Zayn a glass of water when he steps out of the shower and then leaves him to sulk in peace.

By late afternoon, Zayn’s boredom has apparently outweighed his general annoyance with the world and everyone in it.

“What the fuck are we listening to?” he asks gruffly.

“Ben Howard.” Harry looks up from the travel guide he’s reading. Zayn eyes him from across the sundeck as he takes a long drag off his cigarette, somehow managing to make it look menacing. “I didn’t think you’d care,” Harry hastens to add.

“I’m hungover, not dead.”

“It says here the island is a nesting ground for sea turtles,” Harry informs him, waving the travel guide at him.

Zayn’s phone on the coffee table buzzes; he exhales a cloud of smoke, ignoring it. “Yeah?”

“Wanna go see the turtles?”

“Not really.”

“Baby turtles, Zayn.”

“Stop saying turtles.”

“Yes, dearie.”

“I think we should see other people.”

Harry considers throwing a bottle of sun cream at him, but Zayn’s shirtless and golden and slightly dishevelled, all skin and ink and half-lidded eyes, so he ends up ogling him instead. Serves him right.

“Harry.” The corner of Zayn’s mouth quirks up, and he sits up to stub his cigarette out. “Come here.”

It’s possible that there is a universe out there somewhere where a half-naked Zayn beckons Harry with a crook of his finger and pure sin in his eyes, and Harry is capable of saying ‘no’. It’s not this one, he reckons, crawling over to Zayn to kneel beside his chair.

Zayn tangles his fingers in his hair, tilting Harry’s head back, and it’s all he can do not to purr or melt into a puddle on the floor, possibly.

“Turn around,” Zayn says quietly.

His hand is gentle as it slides up Harry’s back, over his shoulders and down his chest. Harry inhales sharply when his thumb circles his nipple, and Zayn pauses for a long moment before catching it between his fingers.

Sucking on his bottom lip, Harry watches Zayn’s hand on him; it’s trembling slightly, as if he’s holding himself back from something, and Harry simply wants. Whatever it is, he wants it, he wants it so bad it makes him lightheaded.

“More?” Zayn asks, his voice raspy.

“Yeah.” He lifts his eyes to find Zayn looking at him intently, hissing when Zayn pinches his nipple a little harder, never looking away from his face. Harry holds his gaze. “Yeah,” he says again, more softly.

It feels devastatingly, achingly intimate, to let himself unravel under Zayn’s unwavering stare. He pulls at Harry’s nipple again until he gasps, arching his back, then runs his hand over Harry’s chest, petting him. Harry hums contently, going pliant under his touch, and Zayn licks his lips, eyes flashing beneath his long eyelashes.

When the pieces fall into place, Harry wonders why it’s taken him so long to figure out what it is that Zayn needs—Zayn, who hadn’t even bothered to dream of becoming an astronaut or a superhero as a kid, because his life had already been planned out for him.

Heart throbbing almost painfully, Harry nods, eyes slipping shut.

“Go on,” he murmurs.

Zayn’s hand cups his cheek, an almost reverent touch. “Yeah?”

“Zayn?” He scrapes his teeth over the pad of Zayn’s thumb, then looks up at him with his sweetest smile. “Make me beg.”

With a faint laugh, Zayn leans down to kiss him, tongue pressing into his mouth for a moment, then he lowers himself to the floor. Harry settles between his legs, back against his chest as Zayn wraps his arms around his waist and tugs at the waistband of his swim shorts.

“Off,” he says, and Harry’s always had a talent for undressing in record time, but he doesn’t think he’s ever managed it quite so quickly before, arms and legs a blur of motion.

Zayn chuckles, nuzzling behind his ear.

“Zayn, come on,” Harry whines, locking his fingers behind Zayn’s head. There’s something about being naked and laid out for Zayn who’s still wearing his jeans, the denim rough against Harry’s skin; it drives him fucking crazy. “C’mon, just—please.”

“That was too easy.”

“ _Zayn_.”

The complaint dies in his throat because Zayn’s fingertips dance over his cock, curious, feather-light.

Harry abruptly stops moving.

“You’re pretty all over,” Zayn says, wrapping his hand around him. Harry sucks in a breath and presses his forehead to Zayn’s cheek, waiting.

Zayn’s other hand curls around his throat, a gentle, anchoring presence. “Don’t come until I say you can. That okay?”

Harry nods, welcoming the familiar calm settling over him.

“Say it, please.”

“Okay.” Harry nods again. “It’s okay.”

It’s different, this time— _more_ ; a sense of cool, crisp serenity flowing through his bloodstream.

“Lift your hips,” Zayn says against his temple.

Bringing his arms back down, he puts his hands on Zayn’s knees on either side of him and raises his hips, fucking up into Zayn’s fist. It feels so good that for a second his vision blurs around the edges, his hips bucking up again.

“Keep going,” Zayn murmurs. He tightens his hold on him, keeping his hand still, and kisses his shoulder when Harry whimpers softly. “That’s it.”

Letting his head tip back onto Zayn’s shoulder, he thrusts up into his hand, a greedy, reckless rhythm that has him teetering on the edge way too soon. He can feel the scratch of stubble against his cheek, Zayn’s hot breath on his skin as he whispers into Harry’s ear, honey-sweet words laced with razor-sharp need.

“Zayn,” he gasps, a little panicked, hips jerking of their own accord. “Fuck, _Zayn._ ”

Zayn’s tongue traces the shell of his ear, making him squirm in his arms. “You gonna come, Harry?”

“Can I?” he asks through his teeth, hands scrabbling at Zayn’s knees.

“Not yet.” Zayn sweeps his thumb over the tip of Harry’s cock, and Harry breathes his name on a sob, slumping against him. Craning his neck, he seeks Zayn’s mouth blindly, but Zayn purses his lips. “Did I tell you to stop?”

“Oh God, please. Too close…” He trails off with a plaintive moan, shivering uncontrollably. It feels like there’s a bolt of lightning ricocheting inside his ribcage, searing him from within. He wants to wail and kick and beg, and he never wants this to end.

“Steady, babe. Breathe.” Zayn tightens his fingers, gripping the base of his cock, and Harry freezes.

“Oh,” he says in a small voice, raising his head to look down.

“Breathe,” Zayn repeats, nudging his nose against Harry’s cheek.

He exhales a laugh, nodding jerkily. “M’good, I think.”

Smiling down at him, Zayn eases his hold on him. “You’re kind of perfect, actually.”

He leans in and kisses him then, slow and soft, his closed lips pressing sweetly against Harry’s trembling mouth.

Harry’s heart leaps into his throat, the suddenness of it leaving him reeling. He’s glowing, Harry thinks dizzily, Zayn is fucking glowing, brighter than the sunlight streaming through the canopy.

This doesn’t…his thoughts are scattered, fleeting, but he tries to retrace them, because they seem important somehow. He’s done this dozens of times, shedding yet another skin, a new incarnation—someone who is needed, wanted, just for an hour or two. It should be easy, comfortable like an old pair of slippers.

It isn’t.

This, Zayn’s lips sliding over his, his thumb resting in the hollow of his throat, the slow rise and fall of his chest against Harry’s back, like he’s forcing himself to take deep, steadying breaths, it feels different. It feels like he’s tearing through Harry’s pretty lie, through skin and flesh and bone, grabbing for his heart.

Dipping his head to suck a bruise onto his neck, Zayn starts working his hand up and down Harry’s cock with quick, sharp strokes. Harry goes completely still, a bead of sweat rolling down his spine. Zayn’s breathing is getting heavier, and he’s grinding into him now; Harry knows his control is starting to slip.

“Please,” he whispers, barely audible.

“Yeah, go on, fuck,” Zayn says with a tremor in his voice. “Go on, babe.”

Time seems to slow down, thick and syrupy and sticky like the local homemade jams as Harry lets go with a series of helpless, quiet pants, sparks exploding behind his eyelids. His orgasm pulses through him for what feels like hours, and the only thing that feels real is Zayn’s hand curled lightly around his throat, gentle, solid.

Zayn kisses the side of his head, loosening his hold on him when Harry mewls.

The brilliantly blue sky swims before his eyes.

“Jesus fuck,” he mutters, and Zayn chuckles. Harry blinks up at him hopefully. “More kisses?”

Zayn rolls his eyes, but his face lights up with one of his nose-crinkling smiles that make him look like a galaxy trapped in human form. It’s Harry’s favourite smile, so he grabs his hair to pull him closer. Zayn makes a sound that’s half laughter, half protest, but he leans in, peppering Harry’s face with kisses until he giggles.

His phone rings, and Zayn sighs against Harry’s mouth.

“What?”

“Nothing.” His carefully casual tone makes Harry’s hair stand on end. Zayn pulls away, and Harry watches him watch the phone.

“Zayn, what’s up?”

“My dick,” Zayn says sullenly. He frowns down at his hand, still wet with come, before wiping it on his jeans. “Gonna do something about it or not?”

Harry folds his arms across his chest and stares at him.

After a beat, Zayn huffs. “It’s my father.” He pushes himself off the floor to sit on the edge of the sun lounger. “Again.”

“What does he want?”

“I don’t know,” Zayn spits out.

“You’re mad,” Harry muses, tipping his head back against the chair to look at him, and Zayn’s gaze trails down the line of his neck as though he can’t help it.

Harry smirks.

“Are you mad at him, Zayn?” he asks slyly, and Zayn’s eyes fucking blaze. It’s gone almost immediately, that flash of red, but Harry sees it because he’s looking for it. “God, you’re furious, aren’t you?”

“What the fuck are you on about?”

The phone starts ringing again.

“Just answer it.”

“Sod off.”

“Zayn.”

Zayn sighs again, swiping his phone off the coffee table. He gives it a disdainful look before answering with a clipped, “What?”

He glowers at Harry as he listens to whatever his father is saying. The mild afternoon sun gilds his cheekbones and the delicate curve of his shoulder.

Harry smiles slowly, and the crease between Zayn’s eyebrows deepens.

Turning around, Harry wedges himself between his legs.

“No,” Zayn growls. Harry blows him a kiss and reaches up to undo his jeans, pulling them down to his thighs. “I wasn’t talking to you,” Zayn says into the phone.

No pants.

With a low groan, Harry bends down to lick a line up the length of Zayn’s cock, dragging his tongue leisurely from base to tip. Zayn mutters a drawn-out curse under his breath, then clears his throat.

“Yeah, I’m listening,” he says, spreading his legs a little more. “Ten days?”

Harry curls his fingers around the base and slides his mouth down Zayn’s cock almost gingerly. Zayn brushes his knuckles down the side of his face, looking at him with a strange half-formed smile, as if he can’t believe he’s getting off on this. And he is, Harry knows; Zayn is so hard it must hurt, eyes dark, lips bitten raw. Nothing like a sprinkle of ‘fuck you’ to spice up a blowjob.

Harry gives him a quick, timid glance through his eyelashes before tightening his lips around him, sucking so hard that Zayn gasps.

He wants to grin at the betrayed look Zayn shoots him, but that’s never easy or, more importantly, attractive when you have a dick in your mouth. He swallows Zayn down instead, inelegant but ruthlessly efficient, until his lips are touching his fingers. Zayn’s hips snap up, and Harry takes it, relaxing his throat for him.

The sound Zayn makes when he hits the back of his throat, a breathy little _oh,_ goes straight to Harry’s cock. He looks so pretty like this, anguished and trembling and falling apart, so heartbreakingly pretty.

Harry pulls off and licks his lips. “You wanna fuck my mouth?”

The faint voice on the other end of the line becomes less faint.

“What? Oh, I’ve got a mate over,” Zayn says. “Good lad, very…erm, friendly.”

Harry hums out a laugh, and Zayn’s eyes zero in on him again.

“Hands behind your back,” he mouths, and Harry actually whines, nearly falling face first into Zayn’s lap in his haste to do as he’s told.

Cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder, Zayn fists his hand in Harry’s hair and wraps the other one around himself. Harry sticks out his tongue with porn star relish, just to be annoying. It earns him a slap on the cheek with Zayn’s dick before he guides it back into Harry’s mouth, laughing a little at his indignant squawk.

He waits for Harry’s nod before pulling his hips back and fucking into his mouth like he means it.

“Okay, send me…send me the schedule, yeah? Oh God, _”_ he hisses, yanking on Harry’s hair when he moans around him. “No, I’m fine, I’m—I’ll call you back,” Zayn says when he’s caught his breath. “Sure, yeah. Bye.”

He tosses the phone aside and opens his mouth to say something, but Harry takes him deeper until his nose is pressed against Zayn’s skin. He’s getting hard again, but it can wait because Zayn makes that sweet little sound again, his hand in Harry’s curls tightening when Harry gags.

“Shh, take it for me, babe,” Zayn pants, and Harry does, hands balling into fists behind his back as he lifts his wet eyes to Zayn.

Throwing his head back with a quiet ‘ _fuck, Harry_ ’, Zayn bites down on his lip, and then he’s coming with a shuddering breath. Harry swallows around him, holding his breath until his ears start ringing and Zayn winces, pulling Harry’s head back.

Harry gasps wetly, and he knows his face is a mess, he can’t even feel his lips, but Zayn’s staring at him like he wants to kiss him, so he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and flashes him a smug grin.

“Yeah, yeah,” Zayn murmurs with a raspy chuckle, brushing the hair back from Harry’s forehead.

Harry snorts, nuzzling into the crease of his thigh. “You silver-tongued devil, you.”

“I…thank you,” Zayn offers, sounding slightly bewildered.

“Yeah, that works,” Harry assures him, smiling up at him.

“No, I mean, like. Really. Just, thank you.” He ducks his head, and Harry wants to kiss the tips of his red ears. He can’t say he’s ever had this particular urge after sucking someone off before.

With a small sigh, Harry reaches for his hand. Zayn turns his palm up and laces their fingers together, squeezing lightly.

Harry silently squeezes back.

 

 

 

 

“He wants me to go home. They’re closing some big deal, apparently, and he needs me there,” Zayn tells him a couple of days later as they lie in bed in his cabin.

Harry stares up at the dark ceiling. “Okay.”

Zayn’s arm tightens around his waist. “Said my mum and my sisters are worried about me.”

“Yeah?” His lower lip quivers and he bites it.

“Babe,” Zayn sighs into his neck.

“No, I know. I know.”

Neither of them says anything for a while. Zayn presses absent-minded kisses to his throat, and Harry draws circles on his back with his fingertips.

“We could stay here and rent a cottage in the village,” Harry murmurs eventually. “We’ll open our own coffee shop or a bakery. You can run around with your camera all day long, and I’ll write my travel journal. And we’ll get a cock, to wake us up in the morning.”

“Another one?” He can feel Zayn’s smile against his skin. “Slag.”

“We _are_ spending too much time together,” he snorts, rolling onto his side to face him. “We’ll grow our own food.”

“And weed,” Zayn adds wistfully.

“Whatever you want, dearie. We can stay in bed all day if we feel like it,” he whispers into the tiny space between them, “fuck until my arse is raw and your dick is chafed.”

Zayn’s expression is a mix of interest and wariness that has Harry giggling so hard he hiccups. Chuckling, Zayn presses his thumb into his dimple.

“We can still do that,” he says, “when you’re back in London?”

Harry abruptly sobers up. That’s not—the hopeful lilt in Zayn’s voice, it’s not supposed to be there.

“Zayn…” The word cracks in half, and Harry pauses to suck in a deep breath. “Maybe we’ll like, run into each other in Bali? Who knows. Or Australia. I’ve always wanted to see Australia.”

Zayn doesn’t move, yet he seems to become smaller, his delicate features and fine frame making him look fragile for the first time since Harry’s known him. He nods, a brittle smile flickering across his lips, and Harry leans in to kiss its edges.

“It’s alright,” he lies.

No, it is. It’s fine. This was never meant to last forever.

Zayn is staring at him with huge unblinking eyes, though, fastened on his face like he’s trying to memorise it, and Harry’s throat feels tight.

“Stop,” he says softly.

“Harry.” Propping himself up on his elbow, Zayn pulls him even closer. “You’ll take care of yourself, yeah?”

He frowns. “’Course I will.”

Zayn swallows, shaking his head like he’s mad at himself. “I know what this is, okay? What we are. I bloody well know.” His fingers clench convulsively, digging into Harry’s arm until he makes a small noise. Zayn relaxes his grip and kisses the top of his head. “The thing is, it doesn’t matter,“ he says into his hair.

“Stop,” Harry hisses.

“Alright, innit?” Zayn sneers.

“Fuck you.” His eyes start to burn and he blinks rapidly.

Zayn shifts, slotting himself between Harry’s thighs, and Harry wraps his arms around his neck. He breathes him in, his familiar scent of sun and salt, tobacco and honey, wondering how long he’d be able to hold onto it for, tucked away in his memory. Months? Years? How long until he starts forgetting the little things: the rasp of Zayn’s voice when he’s sleepy, the comforting weight of his hand between Harry’s shoulder blades, his stupid ring with the skull on it that Harry doesn’t even like, yet he keeps nicking because it makes Zayn smile, even as he calls him a delinquent.

“Actually, fuck me,” he breathes, fisting his hands in Zayn’s hair. “Please?”

Zayn laughs against his mouth, and Harry can almost taste the fine edge of hysteria, bitter like black coffee and cigarette smoke. Or maybe it’s his own answering laugh, bursting out of him in fits and starts.

“What? You went all tortured and dramatic and— _Heathcliff_ on me! It was hot.”

Zayn drops his head onto Harry’s chest, shoulders shaking with laughter. “Heathcliff’s a fucking sociopath, you little perv.”

“Yeah, well.” Harry shrugs, unrepentant. “Are you going to give me something to remember you by or what?”

Zayn hums, and when he looks up, he’s grinning. “How about that raw arse you wanted?”

Harry cackles.

Zayn wants to watch Harry open himself up; Harry nods so quickly he gets a bit dizzy.

It’s hurried, sloppy. Leaning back against the headboard, he slicks up his fingers and presses two into himself straight away. He needs the shock of it to keep from slipping under, because he wants to remember this. Even after he’s long forgotten the colour of Zayn’s eyes and the shape of his smile, this, this will always be his to have: the reflections from the water rippling over their skin like quicksilver in the darkness, Zayn’s warm hand on his ankle, his half-lidded eyes focused on Harry like a fist around his heart, the specks of moonlight caught on the tips of Zayn’s eyelashes.

He spreads his legs more and lets Zayn watch as he works his fingers in and out, lips parting on a wordless sigh.

The waves slosh against the yacht as a powerful gust of wind vexes the sea.

“Another one,” Zayn says, voice hoarse. Harry’s whimper as he slides a third finger in is drowned out by the sound of thunder crashing in the distance. Zayn leans down to kiss the inside of his knee. “You know how fucking gorgeous you are?” he whispers, making Harry’s breath catch in his throat. “Wanna fuck you so bad.”

“Tell me,” he pants, twisting his wrist to push his fingers into himself as deep as they will go. “Please.”

Zayn smiles, loose and kind and easy, then presses a string of murmured words along Harry’s inner thigh—gentle ones and sweet ones, and the filthiest fucking things Harry’s ever heard. His head is spinning, the room is spinning, and he tangles his free hand in Zayn’s hair, desperate for something to hold onto.

Suddenly the cabin is blindingly bright, bathed in neon white light. Zayn’s stopped talking, and it takes Harry a second to realise why. He sinks his teeth into Harry’s thigh, just enough to make him choke out his name, stars bursting behind his eyelids long after the lightning’s faded.

Another clap of thunder shatters the silence, and Harry jumps a little, swearing.

Sitting up, Zayn pulls him into his lap. His lips are twitching like he’s trying very hard not to laugh. Harry starts to pout, but Zayn presses a quick kiss to his mouth, playful, fond, and _It’s you, isn’t it,_ he thinks with quiet, heartrending certainty. _You._

Zayn reaches for the condom he’d left on the bedside table, glaring down at it as though it’s offended him somehow. His gaze flicks longingly to Harry’s face, but he doesn’t say anything.

Biting his lip, Harry shifts to wrap his legs around Zayn’s waist.

“Do we have to?” he hears himself ask, and _what the fuck_? This isn’t—he doesn’t do this, ever.

Zayn’s mouth goes slack. “Seriously?”

“I think so?” He considers it for a moment. “Yeah. I’m good. You?”

Brow furrowing, Zayn nods slowly and just continues to stare at him.

Harry rolls his eyes and hands him the bottle of lube. “You can come in me.”

Zayn shakes his head—trying to clear it or marvelling at their own stupidity, Harry’s not sure.

“Thank you,” he says primly, then blows a raspberry on Harry’s neck.

“Christ.” Harry shoves him, sputtering out a startled laugh. “What’s wrong with you?”

Zayn grins, hands sliding down Harry’s back to cup his arse, and he lifts him up. “You gonna ride me, then?”

“Yeah,” Harry gasps into his mouth, flailing a bit, but he manages to push himself up on his knees. “Oh God.” He exhales sharply, resting his forehead against Zayn’s as he pushes into him.

“Harry,” Zayn murmurs, and he hums quietly in response. “Sit, babe.”

He digs his fingers into Zayn’s shoulders and lets his body go loose, sinking down onto Zayn’s cock almost too fast. They’re both shaking and breathless by the time Zayn’s fully inside him.

Tightening his arms around him, Zayn tips his head back and kisses him again, sweet and slow and blissful, as though they’re holding hands on a first date, as though Harry’s not about to split open, a delicious sort of ache making his nerve endings spark like live wires.

The thought makes him laugh, and that’s it, he decides, he’s actually lost his mind.

Zayn smiles up at him, eyes soft. “What?”

“Just.” Harry rolls his hips. “ _Deep._ ”

Zayn chuckles too, so maybe Harry’s not alone in his madness, at least.

“Deep,” he agrees, tucking a sweaty lock of hair behind Harry’s ear. “You feel so good.”

Harry presses his face into Zayn’s neck; he can’t find his voice and his eyes are stinging again, inexplicably.

It’s raining, he realises, heavy drops drumming on the roof and beating against the window.

For a moment they just listen to the storm raging outside, tangled up in each other, finally close enough.

 

 

 

 

They get into the shower together in the morning and get each other off with slippery, soapy hands, exchanging sleepy kisses through the clouds of steam. Harry amuses himself by writing _ZM_ and _HS_ on the glass wall afterwards, while Zayn washes his hair for him. He smiles when he sees what Harry’s doing and draws a heart around their initials, then kisses him again, holding Harry against the wall, all soft lips and whispered words that Harry can’t quite make out over the water splashing against the floor tiles.

He knows what this is, knows what it means when Zayn walks him to the cottage and kisses him goodbye over and over, pulling Harry back against him when he turns to go inside until he’s laughing against Zayn’s mouth to keep from crying.

The yacht’s not there when Harry looks out from the balcony a few hours later, just like he knew it wouldn’t be.

He does cry then, but he cried when their cat had kittens years ago, and he kind of loses it every time he watches Jamie’s proposal to Aurelia in his broken Portuguese; he’s a weeper. Curled into a tight ball on the bed, he sobs for what feels like hours, until Euphrosyne finds him and scoops him into her arms with a heavy sigh. He’s quietened down by then, probably started to shrivel up a like a raisin too, with no more tears left to cry.

Euphrosyne strokes his hair and wipes his cheeks with the sleeve of her dress.

“He left, Euphrosyne,” Harry says, and he doesn’t recognise his own voice. “Zayn left.”

Euphrosyne nods sadly, then pauses, looking thoughtful.

“Ouzo?” she suggests.

Harry sniffles. “Yeah, let’s get pissed.”

 

 

 

 

The island seems to change overnight, a little less bright, less alluring somehow. Just…less. Harry’s well aware how bloody dramatic that sounds, but the pathetic truth is, he’s too busy being heartbroken to give a fuck.

He tries to distract himself with a trip to the capital town, but his feet take him straight to the promenade where he’d sat with Zayn on this same bench with the chipped paint just a few days ago, eating sandwiches from a street stand.

Zayn had bought him the most ridiculous-looking soft toy turtle, shoving it into Harry’s hands with a muttered, ‘Here, will you stop whinging about the fucking turtles now?’ Harry had clutched it to his chest for the rest of the day.

His shoulders drop; he sits down and watches the sea until the street lights along the promenade flicker on.

He composes a dozen texts and sends none of them, which is probably for the best.

_(I miss you so much, it actually really fucking hurts._

_Hey, so, do you think it’s normal that I can only get myself off when I think about the sound you make when you come?_

_I fucking hate you xx_ )

The sheer absurdity of it makes him angry. It’s not supposed to be like this, he’s not supposed to feel this way. They’ve only known each other for a month, two fucked up, scared boys pretending to be adults. But the thing is, it doesn’t change shit. His heart still stops dead in his chest when he catches sight of a yacht slicing through the waves or a flash of dark hair and tattoos.

Four days later, he sets his pen aside and closes his _Moleskine,_ now full. The sun is setting in a blaze of red and gold, a shimmering haze slowly enveloping the backyard.

He’s done it. He said he would, and he did. He’s got what he wanted for once.

Harry snorts, pressing a hand to his chest as if that would ease the dull ache inside it. Jolly good fucking fellow.

It’s time to go, he knows, time to move on—a new notebook and a new country. Maybe he’ll look for a job and a place to stay for the winter.

He buys a knitted scarf for Euphrosyne from the street market the next morning, sea-foam green and sunny yellow and purple like the flowers of the bushes surrounding the cottage.

“We both know you’re never going to finish that,” Harry tells her, pointing at her abandoned knitting, thrown over the arm of the sofa. He drapes the scarf over Euphrosyne’s shoulders, and she looks like she’s about to burst into tears as she hugs him.

When they pull back, Euphrosyne gives him a small smile and places her strong, wrinkled hand over his heart for a moment, a silent promise. He nods, smiling back. It will get better, yes. Just not right now.

It’s a weekday afternoon, too early for commuters, so the ferry’s almost empty. Harry walks up the stairs to the top deck as the engines rumble to life, vibrating under his feet. He puts his backpack on the floor, leans on the railing and watches as the familiar hilltops, flat roofs and whitewashed façades grow smaller and smaller, until the island becomes a dot on the horizon and then disappears.

 

 

 

 

The ferry port car park is mostly empty too. The pavement burns through the soles of his flip-flops, still holding onto the heat of the long summer days.

With a sigh, he glances down at his feet, then sits on the step of a ticket booth and pulls his boots out of the backpack.

“Don’t,” a voice says. “Not yet. We still have a few warm days left.”

Harry doesn’t look up; he can’t. If this turns out to be a cruel trick his mind is playing on him, if he’s gone completely round the twist and he’s hearing things now, he doesn’t want to know. He closes his eyes, cursing the helpless flutter of his heart and the foolish flicker of hope that springs to life in his chest.

But he left, Zayn left and broke his heart, and this was supposed to be a silly summer thing, but then Harry had to go and fuck it all up by falling for Zayn like a fifteen-year-old. Admittedly, this isn’t strictly Zayn’s fault, but hey, his fucking heart had been broken.

Zayn sits down beside him, and Harry just shakes his head, still staring at the ground. He must look positively insane, because Zayn reaches for him with a concerned “Harry?”

Harry slaps his hand away, finally turning to face him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Yeah, missed you too.” He’s pouting, his pretty pink mouth set in a perfect little pout.

Harry drops the backpack, his boots bouncing off the steps as he launches himself at Zayn.

Zayn sways, momentarily off balance, then huffs out a laugh and pushes himself up on his knees, pinning Harry to the ticket booth with his body.

“How?” Harry breathes, wrapping his legs around him, then he kisses Zayn hard and deep, effectively shutting him up.

Zayn doesn’t seem interested in talking anyway. Hands gripping Harry’s hips, he licks into his mouth, making Harry moan and grind into him.

A voice grumbles something in Greek that sounds like a complaint, which neither of them acknowledges.

“You scare my customers away,” the voice says, louder this time and in heavily accented English.

Swearing under his breath, Zayn buries his face in Harry’s neck. Harry’s stomach does something strange, a sudden wave of protectiveness sweeping over him. Cupping the back of Zayn’s head, he blinks up at the guy standing above them.

“Hi,” Harry says with the most charming smile he can manage with a growing problem in his jeans and a Zayn between his legs.

“Ferry tickets here,” the guy tells him, clearly unmoved. He points towards the main street. “Hotel there.”

Zayn makes a strangled noise, and Harry feels him shake with laughter against him. It’s enough to set him off as well, even though the guy looks decidedly unamused.

“People wait,” he insists.

“Sorry, sorry,” Harry says. “We’re going.”

They get to their feet with some effort, mostly because they’re cackling like idiots, and yes, there _is_ a small queue of mildly annoyed people.

While they pick their stuff up off the ground, including Zayn’s holdall that Harry hadn’t noticed before, a girl in the queue winks at them, smirking. Zayn turns a bright, slightly alarming shade of red and God, he’s actually shy. Harry’s knees turn to water; he grabs Zayn’s hand and pulls him against his side. “Hotel?”

Zayn nods with a small smile, something delicate and private that makes Harry’s heart trip over itself.

He stays pressed against Harry’s back, hands tucked into the front pockets of Harry’s jeans while they wait for the receptionist to give them the room key. Harry reaches back to draw Zayn in even closer, and the receptionist rolls her eyes at them, which they definitely deserve.

That doesn’t stop him from chasing Zayn up the stairs to their room and slapping his bum.

He kicks the door shut, then pushes Zayn down onto the small bed and climbs on top of him. Zayn lets him, with that same soft smile that Harry doesn’t quite know what to make of.

“When did you get here?” he asks, pulling Zayn’s T-shirt off over his head.

“Just got off the plane, like, an hour ago,” Zayn says, reaching up to undo Harry’s jeans.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“Your phone’s off.”

“Oh. Right.” Harry bites his lip. “I, uh. I forgot to charge it, I guess.”

Zayn shoots him a withering glance and flips him onto his back.

“I called Euphrosyne, asked the cabbie to talk to her. She told him you’d left,” he says pointedly, dragging Harry’s jeans down with his pants. “I bribed the driver to break the fucking speed limit, you twat.”

Harry averts his face. He’s not going to apologise for being a pathetic sod who couldn’t look at his lock screen or change the bloody photo, so he’d just let the phone die.

“You’re really here,” he says, staring at the wall. There’s a crack in it that runs from floor to ceiling. It looks dangerous.

“Yeah.” Zayn drops the jeans on the floor next to the bed. “Can’t stay long, though.”

It’s not entirely unexpected, the feeling in the pit of his stomach—the same one you get when you miss a step in a dream.

He lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Zayn is here right now, and it’s enough. It has to be enough.

Harry reaches for him, hands shaking, and then they’re kissing, their teeth knocking together as they grab at each other. Something falls to the floor with a loud crash just as Zayn’s fingers tangle in his hair, and Harry’s sunglasses snap under them when he shifts to dig his heels into the backs of Zayn’s thighs. It’s better than the first gasp of air after being underwater for too long, better than locking eyes with someone across a crowded room, knowing you’re going to fuck, better than getting lost in a new city with nothing but time on your hands.

Something inside him, something needy and starving revels in it, the bright flare of need, the little noises Zayn is making. He’s doing that to him, he’s making Zayn whisper low and rough into his mouth, the beginnings of words and the endings of sighs. He sucks on Zayn’s tongue to taste the sound of his own name on it.

“What do you want?” he pants, pressing the heel of his hand against the bulge in Zayn’s jeans.

Zayn rocks into it with a choked-off groan, then says, “Wait, wait.” Grabbing his wrist, he pulls back. “I just need to say something first.”

Harry huffs, falling back against the pillows. “Can’t you say it with your dick in my mouth?”

Laughing breathlessly, Zayn leans in to kiss him again. “I’ve missed you.”

With a shaky sigh, Harry tips his head back when Zayn presses his lips to his neck. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Zayn murmurs, mouth against his pulse. “Thought about what you said that day, at the caves.”

Harry hums, running his fingers through Zayn’s hair. “What was that?”

“There’s no one around,” he says. “Remember? No one will see. And I…fuck, I want that. I wanna let go, just for a little while. I want to see you let go.” He pauses. “I want to see you. All of you.”

Harry short-circuits. He simply—it stops, everything.

When he doesn’t say anything, Zayn shakes his head and rests his forehead in the crook of Harry’s neck. “I know that’s not what you…like, I realise it’s a lot, and it’s fine if you don’t—” His voice cracks, and Harry’s heart nearly does too. “But I just want _you_.”

“Zayn,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around him. He hugs him so tightly that Zayn’s breathing stutters.

“You’re not freaking out,” Zayn says into his neck, muffled and so utterly bewildered that Harry laughs.

“I kind of am.”

“We don’t have to—”

“I want to.” He kisses his temple. “I want you too.”

He feels Zayn smile against his skin. “You do, huh?”

“You fuck my head up, you know that?” He scratches at the back of Zayn’s neck until he lifts his head to look at him. “I’m selfish, I think, but—”

Zayn frowns, propping himself up on his elbows. “Like fuck you are.”

“No, I am. I give people what they want, but I do it to get something out of it.” Harry shrugs, reaching up to stroke his cheek. “It was different with you. I just wanted you to be happy.”

“I was.” Zayn’s eyes are a little sad for some reason, so Harry forces his face into a grin.

“It helped that I’m really into the things you like, I guess. It doesn’t always work like that.” Harry squints up at him, considering. “There was this girl in Rome.”

The corner of Zayn’s mouth twitches, and he raises an eyebrow.

“She put kitten ears on me, which was fine, whatever. But then she wanted me to meow while we fucked, and that was a bit weird.”

Zayn rolls his eyes, but he’s laughing. “Can’t tell me you didn’t like that.”

This time Harry’s grin is more genuine.

“Maybe a little,” he concedes.

Zayn pinches his nipple cruelly, and Harry bucks his hips up with a shocked gasp.

“Oh, sorry, babe,” Zayn says sweetly, kissing his slack mouth.

Harry was starting to go soft, what with all the talking, but apparently a display of unwarranted jealousy is all it takes when it comes to Zayn, because he’s achingly hard again.

He breathes out a laugh, back arching, and Zayn’s eyes flutter shut as he grinds into Harry. The button of his jeans digs into Harry’s hip, and he whimpers, running his tongue over his bottom lip. “Zayn?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you…I just…” Harry swallows, suddenly so nervous that for one horrible moment he thinks he’s going to throw up. He doesn’t, thank God. “Could you suck me off, please?”

Zayn looks amused at his inordinate politeness, but he doesn’t laugh. He leans down to kiss Harry’s cheek instead, and then he’s naked and sliding down between Harry’s legs.

He seems to have decided to suck the fucking soul right out of him, and Zayn’s scarily determined when he sets his mind to something. Stunned and more turned on than he’s ever been, Harry struggles to keep his eyes open, because he’s sure he’s never seen anything hotter than Zayn’s dark head bobbing up and down between his thighs.

He takes Harry in deeper until he gags, and the sound of it is so obscene that Harry has to bite down on his bottom lip to stop himself from fucking into Zayn’s mouth. Zayn persists, though, letting out a low, pleased hum when Harry’s cock hits the back of his throat, and glances up at him through his long eyelashes, fake demure. His eyes are glinting with a sly, teasing grin, but there’s something else there too, something Harry can’t put a name to, but it makes Zayn glow like a candlelit crystal chandelier.

“Good boy,” Harry rasps obligingly, and the soft vibration of Zayn’s laughter makes him fist his hands in the sheets, pulling and twisting until he hears them rip.

Zayn takes him all the way in his throat again, and Harry drops his head back onto the bed, body taut and trembling with the effort to keep still. He’s babbling, swearing and pleading and, shit, he may have proposed at one point?

Letting Harry slip from between his lips, Zayn smiles up at him and points at his holdall, asking for lube. Harry doesn’t even know how he fishes it out of the bag and hands it to him. He finds a box of condoms too and drops that back into the holdall without a word.

Zayn doesn’t say anything either. His cock is hard against Harry’s hip, leaving a wet smear on his skin, and it makes Harry dizzy with need. Zayn doesn’t seem to notice, focused on Harry as he curls a hand around his thigh and works his fingers in and out of him. Then he leans down to take Harry into his mouth again, and that’s it; Harry clenches down on his fingers and comes with a gasp, tugging roughly at Zayn’s hair. And Zayn just takes it, lets Harry hold him down and swallows every drop like he was fucking made for it.

Harry’s mind is blank, his head full of clouds and wind, heart thundering in his ears. Zayn pulls off and licks his lips, all dark eyes and red mouth, and Harry’s never wanted anyone more. He wants to hold him, kiss him, fuck him, wants to have him, God, why can’t he just have him?

He doesn’t realise he’s shaking, whining low in his throat, until Zayn shushes him gently and pulls him into a kiss.

“C’mon,” Harry pants against his mouth, then rolls over onto his front and draws his knees up under him.

Zayn hesitates. “Harry.”

“ _Zayn._ ” He giggles into the pillow a little deliriously, breath hitching when his cock drags across the stiff cotton sheets, twitching pitifully. He wraps his hand around it, muttering, “Oh fuck _._ ”

“That feel good?” Zayn asks, and he sounds wrecked. His hand, still slick with lube, runs down Harry’s back and grips his waist.

“Yeah, oh God.” He spreads his legs more and arches his back. “Come on, come on, Zayn, fuck.”

When Zayn pushes inside him, he has to bite into the pillow to keep himself quiet; it’s like all the air’s been knocked out of him. The sweet stretch, the familiar pressure deep inside of him, the warmth of Zayn’s breath against his neck, it’s so good and so soon and so much.

Hands braced on either side of Harry’s head, Zayn rocks his hips carefully until he’s pressed right against him, fully inside.

Whimpering, Harry lets go of himself to dig his nails into the mattress. Zayn mouths at his ear, waiting for Harry’s quiet ‘ _okay’_ before he pulls back and fucks into him again.

Reaching for his hand, he threads his fingers through Harry’s, and it’s so sweet that it makes him want to weep. And then he very nearly does, because Zayn moves their clasped hands and wraps them both around Harry’s cock.

His fingertips redraw him, the line of Harry’s back, the curve of his hips, lips and teeth colouring him in, breath etching new shapes and patterns into Harry’s skin, like frost decorating the windows on Christmas morning.

Zayn goes faster, his thrusts sharp and short, and Harry tightens around him helplessly, lifting his hips to meet him. He turns his head to look up at Zayn through his eyelashes, and he’s so beautiful, messy hair, wild eyes, muscles tensing and releasing, so fucking beautiful.

He’s not sure what Zayn sees on his face, but he loses his rhythm for a moment, leaning down to press his lips to Harry’s shoulder—a gentle, strangely delicate thing. It should feel out of place, this quiet intimacy that belongs to lazy Sunday mornings or bickering about the colour of the sofa cushions, but it doesn’t.

It feels right; it feels real.

He sniffles, and Zayn immediately goes still above him, face pressed between Harry’s shoulder blades.

“Don’t, don’t stop,” Harry says, breathless, broken. Propping himself up on his elbows, he pushes back to take Zayn in deeper. His eyes swim out of focus when Zayn groans and slams into him.

He knocks Harry’s hand out of the way and starts tugging him off, fucking into him harder. Harry’s too far gone to worry about the loud moans he lets out every time Zayn’s hips slap against his arse. There’s no rhythm to their movements now, it’s all a wild burst of frantic motion, like a collision of elemental forces.

A second of complete, echoing silence, and then Zayn’s whole body shudders. He sinks his teeth into the back of Harry’s neck, holding him in place, and comes with a sharp huff of breath. Harry can actually _feel_ it, feel Zayn pulsing deep inside him, and he comes so hard he almost blacks out.

His arms give way and he flops onto the bed. Zayn rolls him onto his side and gathers him against his chest. His lips are trembling as they slide against Harry’s, and Harry can’t even kiss back properly, just clings to him and lets Zayn slip his tongue into his mouth.

It’s quiet after that. Zayn’s arm is curled around his waist, nose pressed into Harry’s neck. His breathing is deep and regular, but Harry knows he’s awake, brushing tiny, feather-light kisses across Harry’s collarbones every now and then. Twirling a lock of Zayn’s hair around his finger, Harry watches the specks of dust dancing in the golden late afternoon light.

“Harry?” Zayn murmurs into the hollow of his throat.

“Yeah?”

“Did I break your heart?”

The words grab his attention like a punch to the gut. His fingers convulse in Zayn’s hair, pulling so hard that he winces.

“What?” Harry chokes out.

Zayn lifts his eyes to him, those huge sparkling eyes, anxious and faintly apologetic.

“Just, Euphrosyne said something earlier,” he mumbles, biting his lip.

“That you broke my heart?”

Zayn nods and starts toying with the ship wheel charm on his wrist.

_Oh_. He’s still wearing it.

Harry wonders what that means. He’s calm—detached, even. He’s certainly not feeling lightheaded, not at all. That would be absurd, and Harry is absurd but not _that_ absurd.

“Are you sure that’s what she said, though?” he asks, stalling for time. “Maybe the cabbie misunderstood. Oh, maybe he meant to say ‘block a fart‘? It happens—”

“Stop it.”

Harry runs his hands over his face. “Does it matter?” He sighs, sitting up. “What’s this, do you feel sorry for me or something?”

“Something.” Zayn sits up too, giving Harry a wry smile. “I just quit my job and moved out of my flat.”

Harry drops his hands into his lap, and for a second he can’t tell if his heart is beating or not.

“Are you okay?” he whispers, edging closer so their knees are almost touching.

Zayn nods. “Looks like you’re stuck with me,” he says, trying for casual and failing.

“But.” Harry chews on his bottom lip. “You’re leaving again.”

Zayn stares at him like he’s lost his mind. “I’m not.”

“But you said—”

“No.” Zayn reaches for him, then seems to think better of it and starts tugging on the leather cord again. “No, I meant, like. Both of us. Together. I’m sort of broke, so I thought we could go somewhere new, look for jobs?”

“Together?” Harry’s heart is apparently still working, because it’s doing something crazy right now, somersaulting in his chest like a drunk clown.

“If you want.” Zayn shrugs, his jaw clenching. “But you did ask me to marry you, between quoting Sappho at me and promising to bend me over and fuck me to within an inch of my life. I’m in, by the way.”

Harry barks out a laugh, covering his mouth with his hand when it turns to a sob.

“I took the turtle with me, you know.” He pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his chin on them. “It was stupid, cos it’s huge and takes up all the space in my backpack, and it’s fucking ugly, if I’m honest, but I couldn’t…” He clears his throat. “It was the only thing I had from you.”

Zayn exhales, sudden and sharp like shattering glass. He flings his arms around Harry, drawing his head down on his shoulder. His hands are warm and solid and gentle, so fucking gentle that something in Harry just gives way. Holding onto Zayn, he finally allows himself to believe that maybe this time he won’t have to let go.

“You’re not crying, are you?” Zayn asks, and he sounds so helpless and flustered that Harry smiles a bit, blinking away the tears. “Harry?” Zayn says plaintively, and he can’t help but laugh. Zayn’s thumbs stroke his cheeks, lifting Harry’s face to his. “You’re such a prick,” he murmurs, smiling.

Harry beams at him. “But you want to keep me, don’t you?”

“Oh, I’m keeping you. Fuck if I know what I’m gonna do with you.“ Zayn laughs, running his fingers through Harry’s hair. “Besides, you were the one who brushed me off. _Bali or Australia_ , innit?” he says, mimicking Harry’s slow drawl perfectly.

“Fuck off.” He pouts. “I thought you’d forget all about me as soon as you went home.”

“Yeah, the thing is…” Zayn shrugs again, suddenly fascinated by the tangled sheets. “I had this nagging feeling the whole way back, like something was wrong, you know? I kept checking for my wallet and phone and plane ticket, and everything was there. I couldn’t sleep that night, even though I was back in my own bed. And then it finally hit me what was missing.”

“What?” Harry breathes, although he knows the answer already.

“You.” He takes Harry’s hands in his, staring down at them. “It was always going to be you.”

There are so many words and promises overflowing, spilling out of his heart until it’s so full of Zayn there’s no room for anything else, but his voice is gone and his lips won’t work.

“You,” he echoes after a beat, his whisper barely audible. He turns his palms up and laces their fingers together.

When he looks up, Zayn eyes are twinkling at him like fairy lights. He’s smiling, wide, unguarded, a little lost, as if he doesn’t know how to be anywhere but on the outside looking in.

When their feet get sore from walking and their souls are begging for respite, some wanderers settle down for a while and learn to find beauty in stillness; others never do, like great whites that need to move to breathe.

Some find their true north eventually. And if they’re lucky, Harry thinks, smiling back at Zayn, their true north finds them right back.

 


End file.
